November 8, 2007
Five O'Clock Meeting: Bar Louie
Anytime a new bar opens with more than 3 or 4 taps, my ears perk up. I start getting the urge to go check it out, to pay a visit and welcome the new neighbor on the block. Thus, when a Bar Louie opened this summer in the Verizon Center (downstairs from Lucky Strike) with a 20-tap list, I was immediately lured by the siren song of another taphouse in the area.
Although the bar is a chain (based out of Chicago, with locations all over the country), I had high hopes for the beer list. These hopes were dashed when I saw the taps myself: 20 beers, and not a single one that I had any desire to drink. In addition to the requisite Miller and Bud Light, the list includes such gems as Dos Equis, Blue Moon, Sapporo, Sam Adams Boston Lager, Yeungling, etc. There are some drinkable beers on the list, but nothing that even begins to pique the interest. When I asked about the "local selections" mentioned on the menu, the bartender said that shortly after opening, they had a Dominion beer on tap, but "it didn't sell well." I suppose you can't fault them for playing to their audience, but it's still disappointing.
Despite seemingly having selected a beer list without any regard for good beer, the rest of the Bar Louie experience is fairly pleasant. Fries ($3) were acceptable, the TVs in the main bar area are plentiful and large, and the place is massive. There is plenty of bar space at both bar areas, and then a slew of tables surrounding them. The cocktail list is extensive (it's way larger than I expected), and the food menu is appropriately priced. In addition, happy hour is actually quite a good deal here: Monday-Friday from 4 to 7 p.m., martinis are $6 and 14oz draft beer is $3. There is also a post-weekend special: all day Sunday and from 4 p.m. until close on Monday, drafts are $3, and Miller Lite bottles are $3.50. In the D.C. bar scene, a $3 pint of Sierra Nevada Pale is almost unheard of, so in that sense it's good to know about (the default 20oz pour is $6-7 at non-happy hour prices, though).
All things considered, Bar Louie definitely seems to fall into the "Places to go drink Miller Lite and watch the game" category, not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that. The convenience and price might make it worthy of a stop during happy hour, especially if you happen to be going to a movie upstairs or an event at the Verizon Center, but for a special trip? I'll pass.
Bar Louie
701 7th St. NW
(202) 638-2460
Open daily from 11 a.m. - 2 a.m.
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i know this probably doesn't need to be said, but walk your ass across the street to RFD for beer and food.
I found it odd that after a full paragraph of beer snobbery, there was this: "Fries ($3) were acceptable"
Not that anyone cares, but I love me some Dos Equis.
Can anyone confirm that Yeungling is changing the name of its signature brew to Wide Open Ass, to put it in line with truth-in-advertising laws? Because my years in the Republican National Committee have taught me a few things about analingus, and one thing is that it's mildly preferrable to Yeungling.
Yuengling is fucking tasty. Don't you ever - EVER - try to list it in the same category as Miller, Bud, etc. Of course, paying more than $3 for a pint of it is just plain stupid.
>walk your ass across the street to RFD for beer and food.
...and for servers who haven't bathed since 1997!
That place is BO central.
RFD is indeed one of the area's many good beer options (although I avoid the food as much as possible).
And yes, sometimes all I want to eat with beer is fries.
If by "tasty" you mean "nasty" you're onto something. Last time I made the mistake of ordering Yeungling, I needed a dozen guys to use my mouth as a toilet to get the Yeungling "taste" out.
The Champagne of Bottled Beers FTW!
RFD isn't too bad. Quite good beer specials. Although of course, if you're really interested in beer, you'll go to the Brickskellar, owned by the same people, who are apparently opening up a third establishment in Silver Spring at some point.
Not to sound too snotty, but when I heard Bar Louie was coming to DC I snickered. Seriously, this place is nothing special. Bypass it.
Problem with the Brickskellar is that you need at least three alternatives to whatever beer you choose, because they rarely if ever have your first choice.
Rustico is the place to be for a formidable beer selection, bottles or taps. Everything from cask ales to Schlitz, and decent food to back it up. and Ive actually witnessed the cleaning their taps, unlike certain other so-called brewpubs. Nine thumbs up on the monkeyrotica scale.
I actually like that about the Brickskellar - it forces me to try new beers, and makes it a bit of a surprise. And the staff is incredibly knowledgeable and can easily recommend good fill-ins.
RFD has a great beer list, but the staff are a bunch of assholes, the food is beyond horrible, and the place seems to do a better job of attracting the Miller Lite set than those who know their beer.
Why hasn't Rock Bottom Co. opened an "Old Chicago" restaurant around here? It's casual and has 110 beers from all over the world (20 on tap usually - including a variety of local brews), good food, plus a "World Beer Tour" where you get free shit the more new beers you try.
I can think of half a dozen locations in the DC area where an Old Chicago would be wildly popular.
Every time I've been to Brickskellar I have been less than impressed. RFD has a great selection but, again, stinky waiters and nasty food.
RFD = recent beer
RFD = crappy food
Bar Louie = reasonable middle road
Brickskeller = excellent
Yeungling = good
Monkeyrotica's taste in beer = bad
Krisa's favorite beer bar of all time = Monk's in Philly, before it got obscenely crowded
Make that 30 on tap for Old Chicago, according to their website: www.oldchicago.com
Don't believe me? Take the Hannibal Challenge: fill a tall frosty glass full of Yeungling and another with the stale of horses. I defy you to taste the difference blindfolded.
Last time I was there, Reef's beer selection was still solid.
Mr. Erotica, you have openly admitted your own ineptitude at handling more complex beers in the past. The fact that you also cannot enjoy the simple, flavorful goodness that is a Yuengling simply confirms that fact.
Also, you are somehow only #2 in postings in the past 30 days, so please try harder.
Yuengling is gross. God dammit Pennsylvania puts out some nasty beers. And yet, it's one of those beers that inexplicably has a lot of fans/boosters, but I suspect it's more a bizarro-PA regional pride thing than anything else.
But seriously folks. It's not good beer. Just b/c you have fond memories of drinking it in high school doesn't mean it's drinkable.
If I want a crappy beer-water, I'd pick shlitz, PBR, or regular Budweiser way before Yuengling.
Honorable idiots can differ. But I'll still take Iron City Light before I do Yeungling. Hell, I'll take colonic irrigation with Genessee Cream Ale before I do Yeungling. The stuff is only suitable for cleaning garden equipment and brain surgery victims recovering from comas.
I can do the beer snob thing if I'm in the mood. I'm not above an Old Speckeled Hen or a Beamish with my fish and chips. But to call a mouthful of stale, rancid, flat hops and the aroma of cock rot "flavorful," I really have to ask, have you had a stroke? Do you taste copper? Can you dial 911?
And my dad is Mr. Erotica, or Mrs. Erotica if he's wearing my mom's green chiffon bedrobe and matching pumps.
Whatever bar that can smuggle Fat Tire across the Mississippi will instantly become my favorite.
I'm actually with ME on the anti-brickskeller stance. It's dead to me. Give me the Saloon on U St. Any day. EVERY tap they have will kick ass. Otherwise, Dr. Dremos. HEY, they close in Januray, y'all; give Dr. Dremos some love! You'll miss it when it's gone!
Hell, I'll take colonic irrigation with Genessee Cream Ale
This made me dry-heave a little, and not because of the "colonic irrigation" part.
I know this probably doesn't need to be said, but walk your ass across the street to RFD for beer and food
Two points: RFD has great beer on tap, but all the charm of a VFW post in a VA hospital. Occasionally the thought of a cask ale will draw me over there, but I'm usually disappointed when they either have no real ale, or it's a "Hop Demon Imperial Cherry Stout" or some such idiocy.
The Brickskeller has no beer on tap other than Fri-Sat, at least as of a year ago, when I stopped going. So usually the only thing drinkable there is Abbot Ale in pub draft cans.
I wish the Reef would start getting weekly firkins again like back in the day. Sigh...
Alright, it's only 6:20 and the 5 o'clock meeting post is already scrolled off the front page. Is it possible DCist is too prolific?
The Brickskeller has taps (around 9 of them?) upstairs. Sitting at the bar up there is the way to go.
Hop Demon Imperial Cherry Stout
See, this is exactly what's wrong with America. This is worse than those "ladies beers" companies peddle to try and get women to drink more beer. You know the stuff with retarded names like "Triple Chocolate Nonfat Latte Lager" or "Cranberry Limoncello Those Capris are Really Slimming, You're Not Fat, I'M FAT Ale."
When I was in college in the early 1980s in PA, Yeungling was in the same class of beers as Iron City, Genesee Cream Ale and PBR . . . not great beers but super cheap; and therefore, popular with students.
Getting hammered on cheap beer is a lot like orgams: even when they're lousy, they're still pretty good. Seasoned dipsomaniacs of a certain age always look back wistfully on the intoxicants of their youth, in the same way they get a little teary-eyed at the thought of rubbing-one-out for the first time over that 1972 Playboy foldout. You remember? Back when women still had hips and hair down there? When women in porn didn't look like teenage boys with a ridiculous fake bolt-on rack, and the only silicone available was an industrial lubricant for the ball sockets in your dad's '68 Toronado? But no matter how we try, the beers of our youth are just as flat and two-dimensional as Miss November from that long-ago autumn. Yet we still get a Proustian frisson at the taste of that nasty watery rotgun and we still go a big rubbery one when we try and chisel the pages apart of those dusty beatin bibles of our youth. This fixation on how we got hammered in high school or college or that Ph.D. program is just as unhealthy as those kidnapping victims who fall in love with their captors, or the molestation victims that still hold a special place in their hearts for the burly soccer coach who taught them the finer points of "goalkeeping."
So we beat on, hands against the genitals, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
I can't stand idly by and allow Yuengling to be impugned. It's true that sometimes it can be pretty awful. But such is the fate of sweet brown beers that're packaged in unwisely-colored glass or served from poorly maintained/transatlantic taps (if it isn't obvious, I'm thinking of Newcastle as suffering from the same problems).
If Yuengling's treated you badly, I'm sorry. But you should give it another chance. Next time you're in Philly head to any bar that gives half a damn and ask for a lager. It'll be considerably different from what the folks here are complaining about (and even cheaper than you're expecting).
Ah, but Tom: Yuengling is just as gross on tap.
Actually, in all honesty, Yeungling is just sort of inoffensively bad, versus Miller and the like, which are aggressively bad (that gross corn taste).
What's bothersome is that it's considered by many to be a GOOD beer rather than a cheap-and-drinkable beer (which is often all that's required).
When it comes to the enjoyment of crap beer, I prefer cold, clear and tasteless. Beer that isn't even trying is better than beer that tries and fails.
And seriously, Newcastle: fix your bottles.